


Stars Like Mappoints

by ellenmellenn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean-Centric, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 14:43:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3450902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellenmellenn/pseuds/ellenmellenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically a quick glance into Dean's head, and his relationship with the road. <br/>I recently got to do a solo, cross-country drive, including a 14 hour day. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. </p>
<p>Spoilers through 10x14.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars Like Mappoints

Baby dips on one side where the road’s uneven, straightens up with a soft bump and continues down the highway. The road under her tires probably hasn’t been paved in twenty years, but it’s smooth in the way old shoes you’ve worn the soles out of are smooth. Dean rubs his thumb over the top of the steering wheel; he’s always thought of it as rubbing her cheek. His other hand flexes on the window edge, fingers tapping the guitar riff on the car door. 

This is a longer drive than they usually do anymore, going on fourteen hours now, only stopping for gas and to piss. He’ll give it over to Sammy soon enough, crash in the backseat while Sam takes them across the country as fast as possible. But he doesn’t want to give it up yet. Sam’s asleep in the passenger’s seat, hair flopped in front of his eyes. It’s late and no one’s on the road anymore except the few other long-distance travelers. Dean passes them seamlessly. The windows are down, music’s low, road’s smooth, and Dean feels calm for the first time in days.

The Mark of Cain is eating away at him. He doesn’t know how long until it devours him altogether. Its heat on his arm is a second heartbeat, constantly affirming itself. He catches Sam and Cas staring at his shirt sleeve frequently. Neither of them will look at him straight on anymore if they can help it. They stare at his shoulders and his hair and watch him from the corners of their eyes. They only speak to him in the superficial way people talk to kids: attentiveness without substance. He doesn’t blame them. He can see the red of the mark in his eyes, the pink of the scar tissue. They probably see it too. And Dean knows how hard it is to watch your family turn into a monster right before your eyes. Dean avoids looking at himself as much as possible. 

Right now, nearing midnight in the middle of nowhere, the mirrors of the Impala don’t show him the hellish red of his damned soul or the black eyes he’s afraid will be there every time he looks. The mirrors are solid and dark, the only thing visible in them the pricks of headlights a mile or more back. 

Driving his baby like this, Sam asleep beside him, Dean feels at peace with the mark, and with dying for it. This is how his life is supposed to end. Maybe for a while he’d started to imagine things differently. The bunker is the closest thing to a house he’s had since he was four. The garage full of cars he could work on, the library for Sam, the old records and movies he can show Cas; maybe it does feel like a home. But even with everything laid out before him all in one place, it isn’t right. Sam can preach all day and night that the weight of the world isn’t his responsibility and that there’s more to life than the job, but if Dean’s being honest with himself, it’s okay. Hunting isn’t’ just the only way he knows how to live, it’s the only way he wants to live. Anything else would be a lie, a game he played until it was time to stop pretending and go back to his real life. And he likes his life. It’s easier to say that, breezing through the open Midwest air. 

At thirty-six, Dean is approaching ten years longer than he’d ever expected to live. Sure he hoped to see more, but he hasn’t anticipated anything more than a week into his own future since he was twenty-seven. And all the good they’ve done and all the people he’s met in those nine years: he may not be anything to brag about but it isn’t a bad legacy to leave behind. Sam is heathy, the angels are in Heaven, and if he could just set the issue of Cas’s burning up grace set right, maybe now wouldn’t be such a bad time to go. Getting to be old together with Sammy and Cas would be something; sitting on some porch drinking beer or Johnny Walker Blue like Bobby and Rufus used to. See Sam’s kids. But not at the cost of their safety. 

Cain’s words play on a permanent loop in his brain. Living his life backwards. He’ll kill Cas. Then he’ll kill Sam. Dean didn’t tell Cain but there’s no way he’d survive killing Cas to even have the opportunity to kill Sam. And if Cas is the one to kill him, Dean thinks, right now, that would be okay. Maybe if he’s lucky he’ll have enough breath to be able to thank Cas before he kicks it. That would be the best way to go. Maybe Cas will kiss him first. Maybe Cas will kiss him before it’s a kiss goodbye. It’s too selfish to ask for, but Dean wants to know, if he can, what that feels like before he dies.

A paper bag from a gas station falls to the floor when a strong gust pushes through the open window. Dean turns the music up slightly, humming along without waking Sam. They’re on the way to a lead in Arizona that may be a restless spirit, or maybe a witch, but you never know until you’re there. A map of the area from the glove-box lies across Sam’s lap like a blanket. One of the largest groups of stars you can see in the country hangs over them. The highway is a long, straight line ahead, clear and just for him. The only thing that could improve the moment would be Cas, staring silently and focused out the back window like he used to the first time they stopped an apocalypse, turning once in a while to catch Dean’s eyes in the mirror. 

Two people have died in the case they’re working. By the time they leave, no one else will. Dean is going to die soon. But Sam and Cas will live. 

The steering wheel is tight in his hand. Baby accelerates through a turn, never breaking speed.

Dean doesn’t hate his life.


End file.
